In recent years, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies have emerged as a fast-growing market. Among the various WLAN technologies, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard is the dominating technology and is frequently used for WLANs. The IEEE 802.11 standard includes operations in one or more bands (such as the 2.400-2.500 GHz band and/or the 4.915-5.825 GHz band), and multiple channels within each band. Additional WLAN technologies include mesh networking, peer-to-peer networking, a network of devices within an Internet of Things (IoT) environment, and a network of inter-vehicle communication nodes. Various WLAN technologies may be used in conjunction in a single wireless environment.
Nodes within WLANs wirelessly communicate with other nodes. As an example, a WLAN may include a set of nodes that are client devices and a set of nodes that are network devices. A network device may be communicatively coupled to one or more network resources (e.g., the Internet, an intranet, etc.). The network device may be directly connected to a network resource or connected via a controller. A client device may associate with a network device in order to transmit communications to a network resource and/or receive communications from a network resource. An example of a network device is a wireless access point (AP), which is a digital device that (a) communicates wirelessly with client devices using Wi-Fi, WiGig, Zigbee, Bluetooth or related standards and (b) communicates with another wired or wireless network.
As another example, a WLAN may include a set of nodes that are associated with each other. In a full mesh topology, for example, each node is associated directly to each other node. In a partial mesh topology, each node is associated directly to only a subset of nodes within the network. Each node serves to relay messages to the corresponding associated nodes.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.